Sat, Sep 3, 2011from The Ecologist: Chemical warfare: the horrific birth defects linked to tomato pesticidesCarlitos, as they called him, was born with an extremely rare condition called tetra-amelia syndrome, which left him with neither arms nor legs.... Jesus had Pierre Robin Sequence, a deformity of the lower jaw. As a result, his tongue was in constant danger of falling back into his throat, putting him at risk of choking to death. The baby had to be fed through a plastic tube.
Two days after Jesus was born, Maria Meza gave birth to Jorge. He had one ear, no nose, a cleft palate, one kidney, no anus, and no visible sexual organs. A couple hours later, following a detailed examination, the doctors determined that Jorge was in fact a girl. Her parents renamed her Violeta. Her birth defects were so severe that she survived for only three days....
In addition to living within one hundred yards of each other, Herrera, Maceda, and Meza had one other thing in common. They all worked for the same company, Ag-Mart Produce, Inc., and in the same vast tomato field. Consumers know Ag-Mart mainly through its trademarked UglyRipe heirloom-style tomatoes and Santa Sweets grape tomatoes, sold in plastic clamshell containers adorned with three smiling, dancing tomato characters named Tom, Matt, and Otto. 'Kids love to snack on this nutritious treat,' says the company's advertising....
A sign at the entry warned that the field had been sprayed by no fewer than thirty-one different chemicals during the growing season. Many of them were rated 'highly toxic,' and at least three, the herbicide metribuzin, the fungicide mancozeb, and the insecticide avermectin, are known to be 'developmental and reproductive toxins,' according to Pesticide Action Network. They are teratogenic, meaning they can cause birth defects.
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Wed, Aug 31, 2011from Gannett News Service: House GOP to focus on EPA, labor regulations this fallWASHINGTON - Scaling back environmental regulations on coal ash and power plant pollution will be a top priority for House Republicans when they return from summer recess next week, according to a memo that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor sent fellow Republicans on Monday.
Several proposed or recently enacted Environmental Protection Agency rules addressing coal ash disposal and emissions from power plants number among Cantor's list of 10 "job-destroying regulations" that the GOP will seek to undo in the next few months, his memo said. ...

Tue, Aug 30, 2011from BBC: What is killing killer whales?Marine experts are concerned about an invisible threat to the animals that has been building in our seas since World War II.
That was when industries began extensively using chemical flame retardants, such as PCBs.
These chemicals were later found to harm human health and the environment, and governments around the world banned their use in the 1970s.
But their legacy lives on in the world's seas and oceans, say biologists, posing a modern threat to animals such as killer whales, also known as orcas....
As large mammals, killer whales consume a large amount of prey.
But this position at the top of the food chain, as "apex predators", makes them particularly vulnerable to changes in their prey.
That is because orca feed on fish that in turn eat polluted prey or absorb pollution from the water. So the orca ingest all of the pollution in the chain, in a process called "bioaccumulation"....
Dr Jepson says this fat solubility is a considerable issue for female cetaceans such as killer whales who feed their young for up to a year on high fat milk to kick-start their development.
"You get this huge maternal transfer. It's been calculated that in whales and dolphins about ninety percent or more of the mother's body burden of PCB can be offloaded, particularly to the first calf," he tells BBC Nature.
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The top of the food chain is only as strong as its bioaccumulated links.